


Confined

by Flannigan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Dissociation, Gen, Imprisonment, Out of Body Experiences, Whump, chakra is magic and I make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28821330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flannigan/pseuds/Flannigan
Summary: Imprisoned, Shino is subject to forceful interrogations, and he gives nothing up. He's left to rot in darkness, kept alive on a cruel whim.His hope is fading that he'll be rescued before he loses his mind. To stay sane he lives through his hive of kikai, but it comes with a great risk...
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9
Collections: Written stories for Shino Week 2021





	Confined

**Author's Note:**

> Shinoweek2021! You came faster than I was prepared for! This is a premise for a story I've wanted to explore a little more. 
> 
> Day one prompt: Solitude

Shino wished he was back home with all of his being. Dirt paths well-trodden in the Aburame forests, the warm sun in the fields, and... Everyone, frankly.

He coughed and pulled his coat tighter, hiding from the cold air of his cell in it's mass.

"Don't think of home," he ordered himself in a whisper. It only pained him to imagine he'd never see it again. ... Never see his team again. Kiba and Akamaru. Hinata. Kurenai and little precious Mirai.

His rescue must be on its way. _Someone_ must've noticed his disappearance.

...

"How long has it been?" His voice echoed in the small room, surrounded by darkness and silence like he was dead and buried already. Some weeks, judging by the length of his beard. ... How could he be found here, kept so deep his kikai struggled to find the surface of the cave system?

Positive thoughts. Right. At least his hive thived on fellow prisoners' chakra, and spread through every tunnel and lift and room in the complex system off the Deep Prison. He had no chance of escaping on his own. He only had to wait, because Kiba and Hinata were coming for him.

They're coming to save him.

The cell door clunked with rusty cogs and keys and pushed open, and his jailer entered with a tray and oil-lantern. He pulled the hood far down his face to block the blinding light.

"You're still with us then, Leaf." It was the same jailer as always. She wasn't part of the beatings or tortures, she ever only brought him food.

"I am."

"Here," she set a buckled tin cup on the stones before him, and sat down in front of him and tore bread into pieces on the tray. He couldn't do it with his broken hands and snapped fingers. It was kind of her. It was an attempt at manipulation.

"I won't say anything."

"I know," she sighed. "You never do. Good news for ya, though. The bosses have tired of ya, so no more interrogations."

Lies.

"You wouldn't keep me alive if you were through with me." He held the cup pressed between his knees and pulled the tray of bread-pieces closer, dipping them in the lukewarm broth, eating through the pain in his hands.

"The bosses are through with ya. Not us grunts."

"You have no reason to keep me alive against orders." His eyes were used to the light by now, and he glanced at her through cracked lids. She grinned.

"We're making bets how long it'll take you to loose your wits like the others. I have high hopes for you, Leaf. You seem like you still think you'll make it out. That's funny."

Shino finished his meager dinner under the silent watch of his jailer, she gathered the cup and tray and oil-lantern and left, entombing him in silence and darkness once more.

True, this solitary confinement would drive anyone out of their wits, given enough time. He learned that in the Academy. But Shino was never alone. Thrumming and skittering in the channels in his flesh—his hive of insects that used him as home, grew larvae and matured, mated and laid eggs and died all in the confined space of his body.

Shino laid down in the corner, hood pulled far down his face and curled up as warm as he could, and closed his eyes.

His mind opened wider than was wise, to live through the sensations of his kikai in the caves. From his point of view he walked the tunnels freely and unhindered. Like a phantom he escaped to the surface, just at the edge of his range.

He stood in the dewy grass in the mornings and watched the sun. He sat on the rock formations that hid the cave entrance, tapping his foot to a melody he'd heard somewhere. The rough stone was real under his palms, and the wind caressed his face.

Why should he return to open his mind to the cold, dark sensations of his body? Should he be kept alive for the amusement of his jailers, until he went mad? Death was better, and better to await his body's natural death under the open sky.

He wouldn't be rescued in time. It was too hard a task to ask of anyone. He huffed and bowed his head.

"I'm sorry, sensei. I can't think positive thoughts, even after you've told me so many times."

Days passed. His immense focus into his hive, his 'Meditation of One-Thousand Senses' deepened with every moment.

In the early morning a guard slouched over, spraying blood in the air. Shuriken danced through the air and slit the throats of more guards at the entrance. A rain of kunai and needles followed.

He could cry at the sight. Leaf shinobi, and Hinata leading the charge, closely followed by Kiba and Akamaru. She pointed forward and they ran through him into the cave system.

They'd searched for him, they'd noticed him missing— Of course they had, how could he have given up on them? He followed, Hinata took every turn until they stood before his cell door, deep in the dirt.

It was... open? And filled with the light of a lantern? They pushed the door open and ran in, and Shino peeked in from outside. His jailer, the one who brought food, had moved his body to lay on it's back in the middle of the cell. She crouched over him, a hand on his throat. She looked up, and tore open the stitches of her left shoulder sleeve to reveal an ANBU tattoo. Kiba and Hinata dove to his body, checking him over.

This was enough. They were crying, screaming for him to wake up.

It was time for him to close his mind to his hive, and accept the sensations of his body.

...

...

He couldn't.

Shino tried again.

It wasn't... Where did the edges of his mind begin? No, this, this was a risk with 'one-thousand senses' meditation but surely he could scrape his way out of it! Where was the difference between him and his hive? Nothing to gain purchase on, nothing to even begin feeling his body again...!

Shino dropped down and plunged his hand into his body, no, he had no hands. He wasn't really here. Just. A gathering of parasitic beetles, swarming his body and filling the cell. Everyone were forced to flee the room as his kikai gathered.

He had to regain control now!

_"Shino-sama, you'll rile your kikai into a frenzy at this rate."_

That chakra... It was Aburame chakra, communicating with his kikai. Where?

Shino stood at the entrance of the cave now. His clansman knelt on the ground with cupped hands filled with Shino's kikai, black masses convulsing in his palms at the chakra offered.

Sweet and gentle Muta. Two years his senior, they trained together in the compound, they were friends and of course Muta would come for him! Shino dove to grasp his hands with relief because Muta would understand what's wrong, knew what to do...!

_"You'll be safe now."_ The maggot-master fed him soothing and easy chakra.

The first time in so long Shino had felt comfort and warmth and kindness and-- Please, more, let him feel something soft and gentle and not cold, hard stone and dark and pain. Nothing but this mattered, he forgot Hinata and Kiba and Akamaru. Only Muta.

_"Your suffering is over. You can be restored. If you panic, you may kill your allies."_ Muta's kikai emerged and mixed with Shino, drowning him in soothing chakra.

Then Shino committed taboo of the highest degree and intruded into Muta's sleeves, up his wrists and tattoos and scars and into the entry points near his elbows. He nestled into the flesh like it was his home. This was safety, and warmth and rescue.

Muta resisted and his kikai attacked but for a moment. He trembled and put his hands together, chakra flaring and yielding in pulses.

_"... As you wish, Shino-sama."_ Kind and giving to a fault, Muta was unable to say no and Shino was selfish and desperate. He felt Muta gasp deep and fight to stand up, the intrusion must be disorienting and alien.

Eventually his team and the ANBU emerged. His body was secured to Akamaru's back, covered in wandering kikai.

"He's not waking up, Muta-san!" Kiba called. Shino heard it through Muta's ears.

"Shino-sama's consciousness is preoccupied." Muta spoke. Shino felt his lips move.

_Great Sage, the state of Shino's body. Muta's stomach twisted. Will he survive the journey to the village? And how will he explain to Shibi his son had displaced his mind?_ _Spending too much time living through kikai senses was dangerous, Shino should've known that!_ _He should send a message ahead, have them prepare treatment._

... Muta's thoughts passed through Shino's mind as if they were his own. 

"What the hell does that mean?" Kiba growled.

"I'm not allowed to say. But once my body is healed I'll wake up. Ugh. His body. He'll wake up." Muta pressed his hands together.

_"Sleep, Shino-sama, lest our consciousnesses will twist up."_

And Shino's kikai was forced into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I'm very anxious about posting this, I'm trying to spend less time editing everything five times over and five more times over again, so I really, really hope it was OK! So, please, no critiques, my ego is not prepared for it yet. :) Thank you for understanding! (I'm very happy to get any other kind of comment!)


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